This festival observes the legend of the weaver princess and her husband. Shokujo (the star of Vega) was a dutiful daughter who would weave for her father, the Lord of Heaven, but she became neglectful of her duities after her marriage to the human cow-herder, Kengyuu (the star of Altair). Therefore, her father separated them, allowing them to meet only one day a year at the River of Heaven (AKA, the Milky Way). Some versions of the story state that if it rains then the lovers cannot meet, others say that a flock of magpies will create a bridge for them if it rains, or that the magpies won’t create the bridge for them if it rains. One Tanabata custom is to write your wishes on a kind of of colorful paper called tanzaku and hang it on a specially erected bamboo tree in the hope that the wishes become true.